I raised my binoculars up to look at Fergusson’s front window. The light in the front room of his apartment wasn’t on, but I could see the outline of somebody standing there. I’d say that Twinkie was definitely getting Fergusson’s attention.
She strolled on down to the end of the block. She was getting pretty close to me, so I stepped back behind a tree to avoid a “fancy meeting you here” exchange. I waited a couple of minutes, then poked my head back out. Twink had turned around and was going back up the block, walking slow and sensual.
The figure in Fergusson’s window was gone.
Twinkie sauntered across the street again and stood on the sidewalk. Even with my binoculars I couldn’t see her very clearly. The fog was rolling in off the surface of Green Lake.
Then I caught a flicker of movement on my side of the street. I swung the binoculars around and saw a dark, almost shadowy figure moving along the side of the apartment house. I was fairly certain that it was Fergusson, and he wasn’t moving very fast. He obviously didn’t want to attract attention.
Twink turned and strolled into the foggy park. She didn’t seem to be in any hurry.
Then that goddam fog swirled in and blotted out everything. I couldn’t see more than ten feet away. Well, if I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me, so I crossed the street. I was the third player in this little game, and my advantage lay in the fact that the other two didn’t even know I was there.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if I suddenly encountered one—or both—of them in that fog.
City fog isn’t much like the fog you’ll run into out in the country. It glows because of all the streetlights and automobile headlights, where country fog is pale but dark at the same time. Trees and bushes—and other things—seem to leap out at you in city fog.
It occurred to me that I was taking some dangerous chances. Fergusson was out there in the fog, and he had some evil intentions. Twinkie was also out there, and maybe her intentions were even worse. If Twink happened to mistake me for Fergusson, I could wind up being Joan the Ripper’s next victim. The concept of actually being afraid of one of the Twinkie Twins had never even entered my mind. But if Twink was carrying a syringe loaded with curare and she jumped me, I wouldn’t have time enough to identify myself. Even if I could, there was a distinct possibility that if Twink was going through an episode of fugue, she wouldn’t even recognize my name.
I started being very cautious along about then.
Suddenly a bright light came lancing in amongst the trees. Somebody in the street was obviously probing around with a spotlight. It wasn’t hard to figure out who was so curious: the Seattle Police Department had been very interested in parks for quite some time now.
The playing field was getting a little crowded. My only advantage was that I knew who all the other players were.
The spotlight moved on, slowly sweeping back and forth through the fog, and I stepped out from behind the bushes where I’d taken cover.
Then, from down near the lakeshore, I heard a peculiar sound that made my blood run cold—the undulating sound of a woman’s voice singing wordlessly in a minor key. There was no specific melody involved, but I recognized it immediately. God knows that I’d heard it often enough. The sound coming out of the fog was an almost perfect duplication of the woman’s voice on that unlabeled audiotape that Twinkie could listen to by the hour. And from off in the distance, another sound joined with the woman’s voice in an eerie counterpoint. My skin crawled as I realized that the wolves in the Woodland Park Zoo were howling a response to the soulless song of the woman in the fog near the lakeshore.
Then the spotlight returned, probing through the fog as that police car came back down Green Lake Way. The cops had obviously heard the same sounds that I had, but I was sure that they didn’t have any idea of what they really meant.
My head sort of shut down at that point. Cops usually work in pairs, and it wouldn’t be too long before two cops—with guns—would be searching the foggy darkness by the shore for the source of that strange sound Renata was making. If they found her while she was cutting Fergusson to pieces, they’d probably shoot first and ask questions later. I absolutely had to get to Renata before they did. I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d do when I caught up with her, but I could worry about that later. Right now, I had to get her out of the line of fire.
I didn’t exactly run as I moved through the fog, but I was going pretty fast.
Then the spotlight made another sweep, and I dove for cover. If those cops happened to get trigger-happy, I could end up being their first target.
Renata was still singing somewhere out there in the fog, and the Woodland Park wolves were still singing along, so I was fairly sure she hadn’t finished with Fergusson yet.
The spotlight from Green Lake Way swept past me, and I could tell by looking at that light that the police car had stopped and wasn’t moving. It’d only be a few minutes before the cops realized that they were going to have to get out of the car and come down through the park on foot.
I came up running. My original plan had been to cut Renata off before she could nail Fergusson with her curare, but that’d gone out the window once she’d disappeared in the fog. The way things stood now, about all I could hope for was to get her away before those cops caught her in the act.
The singing rose in a crescendo, and then it faded—almost regretfully, it seemed. The wolves kept singing, though.
Then I heard a faint splash out in the lake. Renata was going for a swim after she’d finished butchering her latest victim. At least she wouldn’t be standing over Fergusson’s bloody corpse when the cops arrived.
I glanced back over my shoulder. Sure enough, I could see a couple of flashlights moving around in the fog back near Green Lake. The cops were out of their car, searching that park.
Off in the distance, I could hear sirens wailing, coming this way. Those first two cops had obviously radioed for backup. Ironically, they’d probably made the call to Mary.
I was still quite a ways ahead of them, though. If I got lucky, I might be able to catch Renata when she came out of the water, and get her away from the murder scene before the cops nabbed her. If I could just get her back to my car, I’d be able to take her to Mary’s place. Then I’d be the one who’d root around in Mary’s medicine cabinet looking for sleeping pills. If I could pull that off, I could have Twink back in Fallon’s bughouse before daylight.
The only problem was that I could see several blinking red lights back out on the street. The backup cars were arriving, and it wouldn’t be long before that narrow strip of trees and grass was crawling with cops. Several other flashlights joined the first pair and they began to fan out.
I reached the shore of Green Lake and started along the edge of the water. I couldn’t see more than ten feet out because of the fog, and I couldn’t be sure if Renata was just wading or if she was out farther, swimming in deeper water.
Then I heard a faint splash. That answered the question: Renata was swimming. I looked back again and saw why. There were flashlights all over the place back near Green Lake. Renata might be crazy, but she wasn’t crazy enough to swim right into the arms of the Seattle Police Department.
I kept moving along the edge of the water, following the occasional splashes. I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear enough to stay with her.
Then I saw that black plastic raincoat on the grass at the edge of the water. A few yards back from the raincoat, there was something huddled motionless near a tree trunk. I was fairly sure that it was Fergusson’s body. I wasn’t thinking very clearly at that point, and it occurred to me that if I dragged Fergusson away from the shore and shoved him under some bushes, the cops wouldn’t find him immediately. That might give Renata time enough to get clear. I’d have to hurry, though. Those flashlights were getting closer.
I’d just reached that huddled figure when one of the spotlights on a police car came probing through the fog. I dropped to the ground near t
he body to stay out of sight.
When I raised my head, I found myself looking directly at Fergusson’s face. That spotlight was setting the fog aglow, so I could see a lot more than I really wanted to see. The look of stark terror on the dead man’s face will probably stay etched on my memory for the rest of my life. He’d obviously recognized the face of a girl he’d murdered almost three years ago.
I retched and scrambled back, almost like a crab trying to escape. Then I rolled over and came up running in a low crouch until I got to the water’s edge.
Things were starting to get a little intense. I had to stay ahead of the cops, but Renata wasn’t swimming very fast. She probably wasn’t even thinking at this point. All she seemed to be doing was trying to stay ahead of the flashlights. I was trying to do the same thing, but it was a little more complicated for me, because I was trying to keep track of her as well.
Then I heard a shout from somewhere behind me. I looked back and saw all the flashlights converging on the place I’d just left. One of the cops had obviously found Fergusson—or what was left of him. That might give me a little more time. I’d known from the beginning what was probably going to happen. The cops had just been investigating some strange sounds. The discovery of Fergusson’s body would distract them. It’d take them a little while to realize that they were almost right on top of Joan the Ripper. The first two cops had heard Renata singing, but they hadn’t realized exactly what that meant.
The splashing sounds out in the lake were growing fainter. Renata seemed to be swimming out farther away from shore. Things weren’t going too well. She could drown out there. I was sure she’d been pretty well hyped-up while she was cutting Fergusson to pieces, and the water was probably colder than hell. Once that all caught up with her, she might stop swimming and sink.
The lakeshore began to curve off toward the left, and the lights from the street began to recede into the fog. The howling of the wolves in the zoo seemed closer now, and it suddenly dawned on me that I’d left the strip-park between Green Lake Way and the water, and moved into Woodland Park itself.
I looked back again. The flashlights were still clustered together in the same place. That gave me a little breathing room.
I hadn’t heard any splashing out in the fog for quite some time, and that didn’t make me feel very good.
Then I saw something that seemed to explain it. As luck had it, there was a narrow sand beach at the edge of the lake, and a line of footprints came out of the water and ran up into the grass of Woodland Park.
It had to be Renata. You won’t find too many people swimming around in Green Lake after midnight in February.
That freezing fog that I’d been cursing all week suddenly seemed like a gift from God. Where it had settled on the grass, it’d frozen, laying a pale white veil on that well-manicured lawn. And running across that frosty grass was the track Renata had left when she’d emerged from the lake.
Tracking her was easy now, but it’d be just as easy for the cops—assuming that they didn’t all stay bunched up around the body. I hurried after her, cutting back and forth across the trail she had laid down in the frozen grass, zigzagging to lay down false trails leading off in several different directions. I hoped that would slow them down, in the event that one of them was sharp enough to realize that Fergusson’s murderer was probably still in the general vicinity. If they started to fan out for a general search, they’d end up obliterating even more tracks by accident than I was trying to do on purpose.
I was positive that Renata was going to have to find shelter, and soon. It was freezing, and she was soaking wet after her swim. Plus, she hadn’t been wearing very much to begin with. If she didn’t find someplace in out of the weather fairly soon, hypothermia would set in, and that was only about one step away from pneumonia.
The trail she’d laid down through the park ran due south. I quit zigzagging and started to run. I had to get her in sight before she reached Fiftieth Street. Once she hit cement, she wouldn’t be leaving a trail anymore.
Then I saw her. Thank God she’d been forced to leave that black raincoat behind. She was hiding behind a large tree right at the edge of the park, obviously waiting for a break in the traffic on Fiftieth Street. Even if her brains were scrambled, she was still sharp enough to stay out of sight until she’d put more distance between her and what was left of Fergusson.
I hunkered down behind a large bush and watched her tensely. The fog pretty much obscured the neighborhood on the other side of the street at the edge of the park, but a sudden eddy pushed the fog aside, and I saw a familiar structure rising out of the surrounding rooftops—the spire of St. Benedict’s Church on Forty-ninth Street.
I’d assumed that Renata had been trying to get back to that alley where she’d stashed her bike, and cycle from there back to Mary’s place. Then she’d wait a day or so and take a bus to the neighborhood where her car was parked so she could drive it somewhere closer to home.
The proximity of St. Benedict’s, though, raised an entirely different possibility. If her head was really turned off, wasn’t it possible that the term “sanctuary” had something to do with that beeline she’d laid down in the grass? Had she been running to reach the church from the moment she’d come out of the lake?
More to the point, though, did the concept of sanctuary still have any legal validity? Could Father O just slam the church door shut and tell the cops to buzz off? I didn’t think he could, but a lot of strange things from the Middle Ages are still kicking around in the legal system.
I tensed up when Renata stepped out from behind that tree and hurried across Fiftieth Street. There weren’t any cars in sight, so she made it to the shadows on the other side before anybody came along to spot her.
“What the hell?” I muttered. Then I crossed the street as well. By the time I got to the other side, Renata was a half block down Stone Way, headed toward Forty-ninth Street. When she got to that corner, she went off to her right. That nailed it down: She was headed toward the church.
I hurried along and reached that corner in about two minutes. I didn’t want to lose her now. She was still in plain sight, walking directly toward the church.
It was only two blocks, and it didn’t take her long to get there. She started up the front stairs to the church door, and I gave a vast sigh of relief. Wonder of wonders, I’d guessed right for a change.
Father O had left the church door unlocked, as he’d told me he always did, and Renata opened it and went inside.
Now what the hell was I going to do? I definitely didn’t want to go barging into that church right behind her.
Then the church door opened, and Father O’Donnell stuck his head out. “Hello?” he called, sounding baffled. I guess the motion sensor in the vestibule had told him that he had a visitor, but evidently he hadn’t spotted Renata.
“It’s me, Father O’Donnell,” I called to him.
“Mark? Is that you?”
“Right,” I replied. “Renata just went inside your church.”
“I didn’t see anybody.”
I went up the steps and joined him. “We’ve got big trouble, Father,” I told him.
“Come inside,” he told me.
“Let’s hold off a minute. I’d better fill you in. Renata definitely went inside, but she’s having one of her episodes. I’ve been following her for the last couple of hours, and we don’t want to get too close to her right now. She’s dangerous.”
“Renata? Be serious, Mark.”
“I am, Father O’Donnell—dead serious. I hate to say this, but Renata’s the serial killer who’s been butchering guys all over the Puget Sound area since last fall.”
“Renata?” His voice sounded incredulous.
“I choked on it myself, but she just took out another one. The cops are probably right behind me, so I’d better keep this short. Renata might seem to be recovering, but every so often, she goes psychotic. I don’t think she realizes what’s happening, but when she flips out, s
he goes hunting, like some avenging angel. I can’t prove it, but I think the guy she just took out was the one she’s been after since last September—the guy who murdered her sister.”
“Good for her!”
“Father O’Donnell,” I said in a pained voice, “she doesn’t need a rooting section. We’ve got to get her off the streets. If her load shifts just a little bit more, she’ll start killing anything wearing pants—you, me, the postman—anybody!”
“Maybe I was being a little . . .” He left it hanging. “What do you think we ought to do?”
“The best thing would probably be to take her back to Doc Fallon’s bughouse. He might have to keep her doped up, but she’ll be safe. If the cops get her, they won’t know what’s going on, and she’ll probably spend the rest of her life screaming. I’m not about to let that happen.”
“Amen,” he agreed. “Let’s go back inside and see if we can find her.”
“Right—but be careful. As far as I know, she’s still got that knife. Maybe you’d better lock this door behind us. We don’t want her slipping out again. The cops are wound up pretty tight, and they might start shooting if they happen to come across her.”
“Good idea,” he agreed.
We went into the vestibule, and Father O locked the heavy door behind us. “Let’s go down to the altar,” he whispered. “Maybe if we try talking to her, we can persuade her to come out.”
“It’s worth a try, I suppose,” I agreed. “Wrestling her to the ground wouldn’t be a very good idea.”
The two of us went quietly through the dimly lighted church. I think we were both pretty well spooked. I know I was.
“Maybe you should try to talk to her,” Father O suggested.
I was about to agree, when I heard a lisping sound coming from one of the alcoves off to my right. “Hold it,” I whispered to Father O. “She’s right over there.”
Regina's Song Page 31